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The Final Choice: Last Meals on Death Row

My last meal would be Cebu lechon skin, salmon sashimi, garlic rice from Aida’s, chicken inasal, hakaw with chili garlic oil, cansi with lots of marrow, fromage a raclette, bacon, smoked sausages, Chorizo el Rey, pecan pie a la mode from Calea. And then I would have a heart attack and die before I reach the electric chair (electric chair??).

In 2012 Gary Carl Simmons sat down for an enormous meal including a Pizza Hut Super Supreme Deep Dish pizza; 10 8-oz. packs of Parmesan cheese; 10 8-oz. packs of ranch dressing; one family size bag of Doritos; 2 large strawberry shakes; two cherry Cokes; one super-size order of McDonald’s fries; and two pints of strawberry ice cream. By about 4:45 one observer reported that he had eaten roughly half of the nearly 30,000-calorie feast before he was marched off to the Mississippi death chamber. At 6:16 that evening he was declared dead after he was executed by lethal injection for a grisly 1996 murder.

Henry Hargreaves’ interpretation of John Wayne Gacy’s last meal (image from New Zealand Herald)

The last meal has become a standard ritual in the contemporary execution, an oddly fascinating public episode in the final moments before society passes its ultimate judgment on one of our…